Friday, September 06, 2013

Planning to Leave Office Early Today? What's your Excuse?!

It’s
another Friday today.But a special one!
Monday is a holiday at my workplace. How lucky that Ganesh Chaturthi isn’t on
Sunday this time! Else one more holiday would have slipped from our hands.

Today many infoscions will be
packing their bags and going home. For those whose homes are nearer and don’t
want to see Shudh Desi Romance this
weekend, would be spending some quality time at home with their loved ones. There
is only one thing that will give most of the people some headache today. What
excuse to cook up to leave office early and rush off to catch that 12pm train :-)

Firstly, such people come into
the office very early. Based on their trains/car-pool timings, one has to plan
accordingly and swipe in early to cross that 3.5 hours of the day. Infosys has
got swipe in and swipe out system for attendance. Some get up as early as 5am
and go to bath at 5:10am. Forget applying soap! People just want to come out of
that cold water as soon as possible and spray huge amount of deodorant to make
others believe that yes, don’t think that we haven’t bathed :-) Luggages are kept in
the cloak room and then after coming into cubicles, the real drama starts. The
planning is finished one day before on Thursday, after loud discussions with
friends. The execution starts today early morning. Pings and mails starts doing
the rounds even if the other person is offline. Infosys has got its own
Microsoft communicator system, where infoscions can chat across various DCs.

One of my friends was relaxed
till yesterday evening until she got some work at the last moment which
required her to work the whole Friday. But she had booked train ticket before
of 2pm! So she pinged her project manager even when he was offline.

Not feeling well, stomach flu…need to go to doctor, appointment at 1pm…

One colleague lashed out at his
server and browser problems. Those modules were not working for him properly.
But still he was required to stay back, come on weekends even to do his
unfinished work. But the tired guy wanted a break for the next hat-trick days.
So he pinged his manager.

Relative dead yesterday night. Need to go home asap.

One of the latest trend is to
apply for a certification. Then book the slot for Friday evening. Tell this to
the concerned authorities that he/she would be unable to do work since they
have a very, very important certification test to give. Chances are very high
that the same person would be 550kms away from the workplace during the scheduled
test.

If project managers or mentors
are in some other DCs then things tend to get slightly crazy. One of my busy
bee colleagues has taken an oath from his best friend. He has given away his
account’s password loudly, audible to people sitting three cubicles away from
him and ordered him to do his incomplete work and assignment. Next weekend, as
a mark of friendship, their places would be swapped.

One of the handsome guys at my
workplace, who is a bachelor, pinged his manager who had a 5 mins away status on communicator,

Accident took place at night back home. Family safe but son injured.
wife calling…need to leave urgently.

Some people who have enough earned
leaves with them, wish to take its full advantage today. Monday is a holiday
and so it will be a 4 days of applied earned leave. This needs loads of
preparation in advance. Not to be marked as absconding,
people put up planned leaves on Sparsh and get in touch with their managers
days before in advance. One of my cool buddies had been dropping killer mails
from day before yesterday, putting every concerned person in Cc, requesting
that she needs to go home because her maternal grandpa is in ICU and wouldn’t be
able to meet the project deadline. But I know for a fact that her beloved grandpa
is already somewhere in heaven.

Today people are hurrying left
and right across my cubicle. Mostly people are making frantic attempts to book
last minute train tickets only to realize that railway chart has already been
made. Some are trying to get in touch with those helping hands that would give
them a free ride to railway station in their air-conditioned cars. While others
left out are planningto go in car-pools. Those who are staying back for work
are being pressurized to change their minds by their desperate friends.